Hercules: Rebirth
by Thor2000
Summary: Several years after Xena's death, Hercules wonders if the Twilight of the Gods was an illusion.


(This story occurs a few years the last episode of Xena)

The worship of the Olympian gods had come to an end. Many of them had been slain by Xena more than a few years before as mortals measured time. Hercules was one of the few left. After the bloodshed, he alone collected their remains and carted them with his great strength to a secret cave near Olympus that would be ideal for a tomb. It was round and deep within the earth where no one would ever find it. Hercules wasn't even sure why he was doing it. What did he owe to these people? They stood by as his wife and children were killed, as wars and battles occurred on Earth and when a prophecy predicted that the child of a close friend would mean their downfall, they took it amongst themselves to try and kill her to destroy the child. They were killed as an end result.

Hercules buried Zeus first in a most prominent place. The man was his father and Hercules still felt a bit of ironic faith to the man. A spear made from a bone off the skeleton of Cronus, his father, had killed him. Hera had been laid to rest by his side. She had been nearly burned and torn to bits by Zeus. To follow was Poseidon, Hephaestus, Artemis, Athena, Hades and Discord with her head laid on her shoulders. This was half of the great council of the gods; the other half had basically vanished to pursue other interests here and there. Apollo had taken to neglecting his followers to follow parties and orgies as far to the east as the Gods of the Chin. The Fates had found new worshippers and were now known as the Norns by the Teutonic tribes to the North. Their death goddess, Hela, had seized upon Tartarus and had added it to her realm as a new conquest. Persephone had abandoned it to follow her mother Demeter to the gods of the Balkans worshipped by the Slavic tribes wandering north. These mortals would need help growing grain and building farms in that frozen wasteland of Asia. Dionysus had become a guest of the Hindu gods where he shared drinks with Soma, their wine god and Hestia was almost the last immortal the Romans had. Being a virgin goddess was not enough for her to command the power of a people who once worshipped almost a hundred gods. The Muses were even scattered across the world giving inspiration, and the Horae were left to wander in song and several sea-gods as Nereus and Proteus found kinship with the immortals worshipped by Maori and Papuan tribes.

Hercules still wondered about Aphrodite at times. He had lost contact with her after the killing business started. Xena had told him that Ares had given up his godhood to do her a favor, but that was a year ago. Somehow, he had a feeling that he was always somewhere nearby plotting something. He couldn't lose the feeling either. Maybe it was stuck in his head after years of dealing with the opportunistic war-god, but the nagging feeling was there. It was almost like a sixth sense that wouldn't go away. Whenever he couldn't lose the feeling, he returned here to the cave to check it out. His buddy, Iolaus, had taken over the throne of Attica vacated by his cousin Orestes. Hercules returned often to help keep the peace of the kingdom and visit with Iolaus' family, but the years were starting take their toll on the former partner and Hercules with his partial godhood still went where he could to help anyone who needed it. When those feelings of dread about his half-brother started returning, Hercules made for a beeline to the Olympian tomb. He was the only one who knew where it was and Ares was the only other one with an interest in it.

Olympus was reaching far across the sky as Hercules raced over the side of the mountain, hopped over a crevasse and then raced up a crevasse to a ledge over his head. Another several meters and he was descending down underground passage fast enough to strike a flint off the wall and light a torch without stopping. The passage sloped again as Hercules veered to a stop and looked round. He lit two more wall torches and then stood by and peered over the markers of the graves. The lit flames flickered as a breeze entered the chamber from the distant surface of the cave.

"Ares…" He spoke aloud. Nothing had been disturbed here. It was pretty much as he left it the last time he was here, but that odd feeling hadn't left him. Ares was here. He knew it. He slowly turned around and wondered if after all this time his partial godhood was getting greater. He turned round as he realized he was not alone!

"Thanks for the light." Ares stood in his usual leather and attitude. "It was sort of dark in here."

"What are you doing here? I heard you had lost your godhood." Hercules was not going to take his eyes off him.

"Oh…" Ares thought of a lie then changed his mind. "Xena sort of had a little in with the Asgardians and got them to give her a gold apple." 

"Sorry to hear about Xena…"

"She's not quite as fun when she's noble…" Ares rolled his eyes. "Or dead… and Livia doesn't want anything to do with me anymore."

"She's got sense."

"Yeah…" Ares sounded ticked off and frustrated. He wandered closer to Discord's marker. "I then spent a little time with my Mesopotamian buddy Nergal and he put me on to this." He held up a small talisman flickering in the torchlight. "He said it was once used to restore the dead back to life, but then he said the Sumerian Gods were forbidden to use it. He didn't say anything about Olympian Gods using it."

"You're going to restore Discord to life." Hercules figured it out. "Why don't you let her be? I think she's very happy wherever she is."

"But I'm not." Ares fired a few lightning bolts as Hercules batted them off with his torch. He tossed it up, launched a volley of kicks to his brother and then caught it again as Ares went down. The talisman dropped into the soft dirt floor as Ares jumped up with a few kicks of his own, but Hercules grabbed his leg and swung him into the cave wall.

"That's going to hurt in the morning…" Ares vaulted off the floor he released fireballs with lightning as Hercules dived behind the altar in the room. He grabbed a handful of dirt and attempted to blind his brother with it as it caught fire in mid-air.

"I think the talisman was in that…"

"What!!" Ares froze and dived for it. He reached into the heat and pulled the string attached to it. Off the end, a drop of sunstone fell that had once been molded into a talisman.

"You melted it!!!"

"Uh… no…" Hercules stood ready to defend himself. "Technically, you did…"

Ares raged with a look of hate and fired the largest ball of flame he could muster. As Hercules dived out of the way, the wily war-god gestured for Discord's marker and cracked it with a show of force. He punched it once to widen the crack and then jerked it off with his bare hands. Hercules popped up as he stared in disbelief at the opened tomb.

It was empty, but for a set of deserted clothing.

PART TWO

Hercules and Ares sat at opposite ends of the cavern. All eight of the tombs were hanging open now and they were just as empty as the first. The bodies of the gods slain by Xena were missing. Ares wondered if they were stolen, but then who would bother to seal the tombs back up after taking them? Hercules wondered if they had been restored to life, but then wouldn't someone have tried to kill Xena or Livia?

"Maybe…" Ares tried to form a thought. "They were abducted by aliens. I've heard of this triangle far to the west…"

"I don't think so." Hercules lightly shook his head. He tried to think of a logical reason to explain the vanishing of the dead Olympians.

"You know," Ares looked up and pulled his hair out of his face exasperatingly "I've heard that the immortals of the Afrikaans have these weird rites with the dead where they… reanimate… the dead without returning them to life. They call it Hoodoo or something like that."

"Attack of the living dead gods?" Hercules reacted unamused. "What do they eat? Brains?" He scoffed at the thought. "No, we're missing something here. Something… obvious."

"Are you sure they were dead?"

"Oh, they were dead…" Hercules started replaying the incidents over in his mind. "I mean, if your head gets severed from your shoulders, I don't think you're going to be worried about anything else after that."

"Are you sure you buried them?" Ares asked as Hercules gave him a look.

"The only thing I can figure out…." Hercules rose to his feet. "Is… well, there's never been a dead god before… maybe you immortals vanish completely when you die."

"Oh yeah," Ares stood himself and twitched his head sarcastically. "Well, I'll put that under the file… misconceptions-mortals- have-about-gods along with the fact that we're supposed to be figments of your imaginations."

"Yeah…" Hercules sometimes forgot Ares was a god and just thought of him as an obnoxious and violent big brother. "Look, turn out the torches when you go…" He turned and hiked up the passageway to the outside as Ares just glared at Hercules' holier than thou attitude. He turned his head back to the vault where Discord was supposed to be laid to rest and pulled out the remnants of her clothes. He held them on his arm a second as he tried to picture her in an afterworld beyond Tartarus and the Elysian Fields standing in the buff before that one true God that the Hebrews and Christians always talked about. He thought it was a far-fetched idea when the Moslems first started talking about it, but now this one God business was getting out of hand and he had to do something to stop it. Discord might have been unavailable to help, but he still had other potential allies to deal with the pervading concept.

"If only I told you how I really felt when I had the chance…" He told the tangle of leather and studs in his arms then dropped them unceremoniously to the floor of the chamber. As he turned the way back out, he snapped his fingers and the torches went out.

PART THREE

The hallowed grandeur that once was Olympus had seen better times. Once obscured from mortals by thick clouds of cracking thunder clouds, the once grand towers and temples atop it were now deserted and abandoned as the mortal realm invaded and blew dried leaves across once glowing marble floors. The golden gates of Janus the watcher-god had degraded into rusted iron waving in the breeze. Demeter's gardens of once lush flowers whose vines once climbed the carved columns now sat withered and wasted away under a petrified sheet of frost and snow. Trees beneath which the great Pan once danced under and pursued fairies had now wasted away and their limbs became desolate of leaves. Long corridors filled with statues of history's most prominent heroes and adventurers had been left forgotten for explorers to find. It was to this abandoned immortal home that Ares returned for answers. He had not been here for a long time. His ego fumed to see it deserted and neglected as so many of their temples on earth nowadays.

"Where is everyone??!" His voice roared through the empty halls that once echoed with laughter and songs. He refused to believe that they could all be dead. They were creators of the universe! Guides to the destinies of men! They had lived for centuries and brought men out of the great disaster that would have destroyed the planet. They were immortals. They were gods!!

Ares roared with anger and stormed down a corridor. The statue of Perseus stood at the end as he finally had a chance to blast it and rid himself of its hated image. The resonated explosion of its marble shards echoed through the empty chambers and parapets of Olympus as Aphrodite's favorite statue reeled from the blast and toppled over breaking off its arms. Another statue felt another pang of Ares' outburst and was shattered to dust. Rushing around another corner, Ares dashed down another hallway and suddenly paused as something caught his eye.

Discord's room….

He remembered when she was born. He certainly didn't want another sister, especially one that followed him around and picked up on his own habits. The only joy he had really had was with teaching her the art of warfare by blasting and knocking her around every chance he got even if their father blasted him a few times for every injury she went through. He stepped forward and scuffed his heel through the layer of dust on the floor. He had never seen dust on Olympus before nor was it his desire to start keeping house.

He noticed something else. The room had been stripped of possessions. Discord was supposed to have a collection like his of weapons and swords and daggers from far abroad and reaching from the Toltecs to the Chin. Only his collection was greater, but hers was missing as if she had moved it. Could she have known she was going to die before attacking Xena and have put it away, or could someone like Athena have taken it all? He hated mysteries…

"Did you know you were about to die?" He asked the room as if he felt his sister's presence close by. "Did you have a plan?" He started grinded his teeth as he became even more angry. "Why didn't you let me in on it??!!"

PART FOUR

Hercules cared much more for his mortal relatives than his immortal ones. Although related to the throne of Mycenae inherited by her cousin Eurystheus, his mother Alcmene had had a brother named Cepheus who was now long since dead. His son, Weam, was now an old man was just as blind as he was in his youth. The cousin was now the caretaker for the temple of the twelve gods up in Macedonia where Hercules now found himself. The old temple reputedly built by Hephaestus and the Cyclops. The walls told the history of the gods both before and after the ordeal with the Titans and the records reportedly had a history of creation as told by the gods. If anyone had inkling about the secrets the gods kept from man, it would be Weam. 

"I honestly have no idea, Hercules." Weam tapped his way through the temple using his cane to find his way. "If a god could die, I just figured it would find its way to Tartarus."

"Well, that was never enough to hold Xena or Iolaus back…"

"What about when Iolaus lost his life to Dahak?" Weam had felt his way to a table stacked with scrolls and tomes from far abroad. "That would seem to suggest there are other realms for the spirits of dead." His head turned to the direction of Hercules' voice. "Why this concern for the gods? They're dead."

"I know they are, but…." Hercules looked upon his cousin. "I've got this nagging feeling that they're not. On the other hand, I don't know why they'd be pretending to be dead if they weren't. You know what I mean. They've manipulated mankind for as long as I can remember. Now, I feel as if they are doing it from the afterlife."

"Could it be guilt?"

"What?"

"Herc," Weam turned and felt his way to a flask of water as Hercules poured his cup for him. "You're half-god. Maybe without other gods, your immortal half is getting stronger and you are becoming a god."

"Don't know if I like that…"

"Hercules, I…." Weam's voice stopped as he thought he heard a crack of thunder. To Hercules, it sounded more like an explosion from the great hall. He turned and raced out of the room and down the hall as temple patrons fled for safety. Hercules' feet slid to a stop on the polished parquet floor before the three-story tall statue of Zeus. He had first seen it as a boy when he first learned that he was the son of Zeus. Of course, back then, it had two shoulders and Ares wasn't aiming for the head.

"I think I'm pulling to the left…" Ares looked up to his brother for a mere moment then fired a heavier volley of lightning bolts to the head of the statue again. The massive explosion destroyed it completely this time as fragments and a dust cloud filled the huge room.  Hercules had to move to dodge the larger fragments and punch the other flying pieces from hitting innocent by-standers. Ares meanwhile reared back his arm again and totaled the smaller life-size statue of his mother, Hera. A piece of that flew outward and knocked the statue of Demeter from its pedestal as it shattered. Hercules sprang forward to stop his hated brother and pummeled him across the floor. A stray burst of lightning for the statue of Athena blasted the statue of Ares instead.

"You made me blast my own statue!!!" Ares felt his temper flair up as he recharged another blast and threw it as hard as he could. It struck Hercules in the pit of his chest as he flew backward and shattered the statue of Hermes. Another prized statue crumbled into debris as Hercules groaned, lifted himself and gripped the broken leg of the messenger-god like a club as he swung it across the war-god's face. Ares sailed back as the statue of Dionysus met the same fate as the others. The front doors of the temple flew open from the fleeing churchgoers as the wind picked up outside. Thunder cracked as the last traces of the Olympian gods were being destroyed.

Ares punched Hercules face against the fresco of Pan and disfigured the image of the goat-god. The two-faced image of Janus was next to be corrupted as Ares's back was shoved into it. Lightning cracked outside even more violent as before as it became obvious a major storm was brewing. Weam heard part of the roof come in and then a gush of air as Ares slammed into the altar to the Fates and put its flame out. Rolling off that, he charged ahead and attacked Hercules as the statues of the Muses went down like dominoes. A mantle of urns left to Hecate was disturbed as the ashes of loved one's turned into smoke and obscured the fighting brothers. The wind charging into the temple blew the dust away as a figure appeared in the doorway and scowled uncovering the hood concealing its face.

"Ares!!!!"

The war-god had heard that voice before many, many times. He had Hercules pinned down as he looked up to the face of his father Zeus staring at him. He tried to say something as a crack of lightning and thunder punched into him with the force of a hurricane.  

"What the???" The force slid his flying ass sliding down a long passageway over fifty feet and into a wall. Leaning too far one way sent him crashing down two flights of steps into the basement of the temple and the catacombs. Ares felt air as the continuing momentum from the blast sent him falling through the air and landing with a loud thunderous crash into a waiting sarcophagus. He had never known that much pain before. As his blurred vision settled, he recognized Discord staring down on him from outside the sarcophagus.

"Discord!!!" He started to reach to her, but she slammed the lid on him. On the other end, Hephaestus lifted a slab of iron and a hammer and started putting enchanted binds on the temple that no god could break. A few more enchantments, and the war-god would be gone for a long time.

"If he ever gets out of there," Discord looked up. "I won't stand a chance."

"Try not to think about it…" The lame smith-god continuing hammering the coffin shut.

PART FIVE

The sun was high in the sky as father and estranged son walked through a meadow under trees and past long grass swaying in the wind. A distant farmer tended his sheep and the breeze picked up a Hercules tried to understand why his father who he had been believed was dead had waited till now to seal up Ares rather than a thousand years prior.

"Okay," Hercules tried not to be surprised. "You want to tell me why you're not dead?" He stared at the thunder-god before him and tried to figure him out. "You told me that Xena's child meant the destruction of the Olympian gods and…."

"Hercules…" Zeus paused under a huge oak. "Didn't you ever wonder who made that prophesy?"

"I…" Hercules postured a bit. "Did sort of wonder about it."

"I made that prophesy." Zeus confessed. "I saw everything that was going to happen over a thousand years before it happened back when I was a young prince of a figure myself. I saw what could be and what was going to happen. I saw Hera kill your wife and children when your great-grandfather was born. You want to know why I never prevented it? It's because even we immortals have no power over destiny. Hercules, everything you ever experienced was meant to happen and I was not allowed to change it in the slightest and why? Because it was meant to happen. Everything that every happened to you has always been part of a grander scheme to make you what you are to day. If Deianeira and your children had not died, you might not be the Hercules you are today. That heartbreak was essential to make you more than a man with the power of a immortal…"

"Well," Hercules rolled his eyes disgustedly. "You could have told me!!" He turned away and sighed a bit as he thought of all the others he had lost. "You're supposed to be my father! But no, you sat back as Hera destroyed everything that has ever meant anything to me! "

"And I wanted to save you from all I foresaw, but I didn't… because it was all meant for the greater good." Zeus continued. 

"But what about Xena's daughter?" Hercules reminded him. "You tried to kill her."

"I had to bend the rules a little there." Zeus rubbed his beard. "I knew Eve meant our destruction and before we tried to destroy her, I created a several spells to restore to life any immortals who were killed. I mean, Eve mean the end of the worship of the Olympian gods, but our deaths were not actually part of the prophecy."

"But why?" Hercules looked at him. "Why would you out of anyone use Eve to stage the deaths of the Olympians? Why…" 

"Because the Romans were slaughtering thousands of Christians in our names." Zeus answered back. "I for one was ashamed. I did not want the Romans using our names as an excuse to wipe out whole races or religions." He gasped a bit and calmed again. "When I overthrew my father, I wanted to put an end to god worship right then, but mortals were still extremely superstitious. We gave them rain and we showed them the way to stop living in caves and became civilized, and they turned around and called us gods and built temples in our names. I never wanted to be a god, and I admit I shirked a lot of the responsibility too, and in the meantime, the worship inflated the egos of several like Ares and Hera and Athena and Aphrodite…" Zeus folded his arms as he stopped walking and pacing. "We're immortals, nothing more. It was you mortals who made us gods… there's only been one true God all along and the Christians are finally getting the word out."

"And what happens now?"  Hercules looked him over. "If everyone thinks the Olympians are dead, what…"

"No more gods, Hercules." Zeus unfolded his arms and continued walking along the bank of the brook near them. "We will no longer be gods and instead live as we are supposed to be. Immortals standing from a far and watching the world pass them by. Ares was the only one who might have resisted my new non-interference rule and I've seen fit to have him put away where he can no longer stir up war. Mortals don't need help in starting wars. We will no longer take a part in the suffering that mortals create. We've become the parents leaving the kids to clean up their own mess.

"You on the other hand still have a greater destiny." Zeus continued. "You and Eve have to show men how to live without bending to their knees and making those bloody sacrifices. You have to show mortals how to help themselves, and perhaps, just perhaps, the other fourteen pantheons will follow in kind. My son, I have seen a lot more good from you coming involving prophesies of great and bold discoveries of lands and science alongside other immortals from other realms and mortals with godlike powers who would call themselves Avengers alongside dark-knight detectives and men of steel. Hercules, your legendary journeys have just begun…"

END


End file.
